The remaining skulls with which these are classed may be regarded as a fair series of examples of medieval Scottish crania.—No. 31 was found in 1828, in a deep cutting about midway up the south side of the rock on which Edinburgh Castle stands, during the construction of a new approach to the old town. Beside it were several large boars' tusks, and an iron weapon greatly corroded.—No. 32 was obtained in 1829, in digging the foundations of a school built in the Vennel of Edinburgh, on the site of part of the town wall, erected immediately after the disastrous battle of Flodden in 1513. The woodcut represents the ancient tower, which still remains, almost the last remnant of the civic fortifications reared at that memorable crisis in Scottish history, and the relic which is here associated with these venerable defences is not without features appropriate to the stern memorials of that epoch. The skull has a deep gash, apparently from the blow of a sword or axe, and pertained, we may presume, to some old civic warder of the Scottish capital, slain at his post on the city wall.—Nos. 33-38 were all discovered in the course of excavations made to the south of the old Parliament House at Edinburgh in 1844, for the purpose of building new court-houses, when several ancient oak coffins and other early relics were brought to light.[210] They lay alongside of the earliest city wall, built by James III. in 1450, and within the Nether Kirkyard of St. Giles', which appears to have fallen into disuse in the reign of Queen Mary. To these are added No. 39, a skull found in digging a drain in Constitution Street, Leith, probably within the ancient limits of St. Mary's Church-yard, which was bounded on that side by the ancient town wall, razed to the ground immediately after the siege of Leith in 1560. These crania, it should be added, are apparently all males, with the exception of No. 4, and perhaps also No. 36.

Such are the elements from which it has been attempted to deduce some conclusions of general import in regard to the successive primitive races that have occupied Scotland prior to the era of authentic historic records. The data are much too few to justify the dogmatic assertion of any general inferences, or to admit of positive answers to the questions naturally suggested by the conclusions arrived at by Nillson and Eschricht in relation to the races of Scandinavia. They include, however, all the examples that could be obtained, and are in so far valuable as trustworthy examples of the cranial characteristics of Scottish races, that they have been selected from various localities, by different individuals, with no single purpose in view. It is difficult, however, even after obtaining the proper crania, to determine the most trustworthy elements of relative proportion. Dr. Walter Adam, who had the advantage of studying under both Dr. Barclay and Mr. Abernethy, carried out an extensive series of measurements of crania, chiefly from examples found in the catacombs of Paris, and preserved in the University Museum there. These I now possess, through the kindness of Dr. Adam, and he remarks in writing to me on the subject:—"So far as appeared, precision could only be obtained by referring every dimension to the compression of the zygoma; the measurement being seven-eighths of what I consider the normal transverse of at least the Caucasian cranium; that is, of half the length of the head—the long-admitted statuary scale." Owing to the imperfect state of the zygomata in the great majority of skulls from the tumuli, this measurement is unfortunately rarely attainable. Next in importance, however, is one of the additional ones in the table, marked as the inter-mastoid line, from the upper root of the zygomatic process. The relative proportions of this and of the parietal diameter, when compared with the longitudinal diameter, afford the most characteristic elements of comparison between the different types. Another interesting element of comparison appears to consist in the relative proportions of the parietal and vertical diameters. So far as appears from the table of measurements, the following laws would seem to be indicated:—In the primitive or elongated dolicho-kephalic type—for which the distinctive title of kumbe-kephalic is here suggested—the parietal diameter is remarkably small, being frequently exceeded by the vertical diameter; in the second or brachy-kephalic class, the parietal diameter is the greater of the two; in the Celtic crania they are nearly equal; and in the medieval or true dolicho-kephalic heads, the parietal diameter is again found decidedly in excess; while the preponderance or deficiency of the longitudinal in its relative proportion to the other diameters, furnishes the most characteristic features referred to in the classification of the kumbe-kephalic, brachy-kephalic, Celtic, and dolicho-kephalic types. Not the least interesting indications which these results afford, both to the ethnologist and the archæologist, are the evidences of native primitive races in Scotland prior to the intrusion of the Celtæ; and also the probability of these races having succeeded each other in a different order from the primitive colonists of Scandinavia. Of the former fact, viz., the existence of primitive races prior to the Celtæ, I think no doubt can now be entertained. Of the order of their succession, and their exact share in the changes and progressive development of the native arts which the archæologist detects, we still stand in need of further proof; and the assumed primeval position of the kumbe-kephalic race of Scotland is advanced here only interrogatively, and with the view of inducing others to take up the same interesting inquiry. The subject demands much more extended observation before any such conclusion can be dogmatically affirmed concerning the primitive Scottish races. We have also still to obtain the proofs of that abrupt change from the one form to the other, only to be procured as the result of numerous independent observations, but which can alone satisfactorily establish the fact of the intrusion of new races. The same evidence may also be expected to show whether the primitive race was entirely superseded by later colonists. If the Allophylian aborigines were not exterminated, but were admitted to share in the superior arts of their conquerors, some proof may yet be recoverable of the gradual progression in physical conformation as they abandoned the nomadic and wild hunter state for a pastoral life, so that they were not finally extirpated, but interfused into the mixed race which now occupies the country, as we know was to some extent the case, at a later period, with its Celtic population.

Not only in the annual operations of the agriculturist, but also in the deliberate researches of the archæologist, hundreds of tumular crania have been disinterred. Of these, however, scarcely any note has been taken, nor can we hope to obtain sufficient data for the determination of the interesting questions involved in the investigation till its importance is more generally recognised. A few facts, however, have been noted from time to time, some of which, in the absence of more precise observations, may help to throw light on the physical characteristics of the primitive British races. With this view, therefore, the following additional notices are selected.

In 1825 one of the singular northern circular forts usually styled burghs, situated at Burghar, in the parish of Evie, Orkney, was explored by the son of the resident clergyman, when there was found within the area a human skeleton, a rude bone comb of most primitive fashion, and part of a deer's horn. The comb, which is now preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is figured in another chapter; it measures four inches in length, and could not readily be surpassed in the rudeness of its construction or attempts at ornament. Along with this curious relic, the skull was forwarded to Edinburgh by Alexander Peterkin, Esq., but it is described in his communication as then in fragments, and has not been preserved. Mr. Peterkin remarks of it,—"Although the upper part of the skull be separated into two parts, you will observe on joining them together that it is of a very singular conformation. The extreme lowness of the forehead and length backward, present a peculiarity which may be interesting to phrenologists."[211] This, therefore, would appear to have belonged to the primitive Kumbekephalæ.

Other observations on the physical characteristics of the remains found in primitive Scottish sepulchres are much less definite. Alexander Thomson, Esq. of Banchory, remarks in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, describing two urns found in a cist on his estate in Aberdeenshire:—"The skeleton was far from entire, but there were fragments of every part of it found. The teeth are perfectly fresh, and from the appearance of the jaws, the skeleton must be that of a full-grown person, though of small size. I was told that the skeleton lay quite regular when first found."[212] It may be presumed that in this case, as in other examples of the physical conformation of the primitive race, the smallness of the head was not a precise criterion of the dimensions of the skeleton. Another correspondent describes a cist discovered by the plough on the farm of Farrochie, in the parish of Feteress, Kincardineshire, within which was found a small urn and upwards of one hundred beads of polished black shale:—

The crania already noticed from the Scottish tumuli, it is obvious, include two greatly differing types, one of which, at least, cannot with strict propriety be described as either remarkably narrow or very small in the forehead, when compared with the occiput. The description of Dr. Prichard will, however, be frequently found applicable to those of the brachy-kephalic type, examples of which, it may be presumed, have fallen under his notice. The peculiar characteristic of the primeval Scottish type appears rather to be a narrow prolongation of the occiput in the region of the cerebellum, suggesting the term already applied to them of boat-shaped, and for which the name of Kumbekephalæ may perhaps be conveniently employed to distinguish them from the higher type with which they are otherwise apt to be confounded. Dr. Thurnam remarks,—"The few crania which I have myself seen from early British tumuli, correspond very much with Dr. Prichard's description. They had, for the most part, a shortened oval form; ample behind, and somewhat narrow and receding in the forehead. The cranium from the undoubtedly British tumulus at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, has this general form; it is, however, unusually large, and not deficient in frontal development; its form, too, is in some respects fine, particularly as regards the full supra-orbital region, and the high and fully developed middle head."[215] The Rev. Abner W. Brown, vicar of Pitchley, Northamptonshire, furnished to the Archæological Association in 1846 an interesting account of some British Kistvaens found there under very remarkable circumstances. The name of the locality is spelt in Doomsday-book Pihtes-lea and Picts-lei, terms sufficiently suggestive of the Celtic Picts or Ffichti of the north. "The skeleton which we have endeavoured to preserve," the writer remarks, "is that of a muscular well-proportioned young man, probably five feet nine inches high. The teeth are fine; the wisdom teeth scarcely developed. The facial line in some of the skulls appeared to be very fine. This skull exhibits the peculiar lengthy form, the prominent and high cheek-bones, and the remarkable narrowness of forehead which characterize the Celtic races, and distinguish theirs from the rounder, broader skulls, and more upright facial line, of the Teutonic tribes."[216] It is obvious, however, from the above description, that the ancient crania of Pihtes-lea differ greatly from the true Celtic type, and correspond rather to the Kumbekephalæ. The whole circumstances attendant on their discovery indicate their belonging to a very remote era. The venerable church of Pitchley, an edifice still retaining original work of the beginning of the twelfth century, having begun to exhibit alarming symptoms of decrepitude, was carefully repaired and restored, even to the foundations. In reconstructing one of the principal pillars, the startling fact was brought to light, that the Norman builders had laid the foundation of the pillar in ignorance of a rude hollow cist lying directly underneath, with only about a foot of soil between. Other portions of the edifice were discovered to have been, in like manner, unconsciously founded above the graves of an elder race, and it at length became apparent that the ancient churchyard was entirely superimposed on a still older cemetery. "Below the foundation, though above the level of the kistvaens, there were common graves; in one of them was the skeleton of a beheaded person lying at full length, the head placed upon the breast, one of the neck-bones having apparently been divided." Pitchley Church belonged, even before the Conquest, to the Abbey of Peterborough. It was probably one of the earliest English sites of a Christian church; yet the British or Saxon graves of the upper tier, made in ignorance of the older cists below, had become sufficiently consolidated at the date of the Norman foundation to admit of the building of a solid and durable fabric above them. The cists lay nearly east and west, the bodies at full length, lying on their right sides, with the faces looking to the south, and the arms crossed in a peculiar way—the right arm across the breast, with its hand touching the left shoulder, and the left arm straight across, so that its hand touched the right elbow.[217] Both Norman and Roman coins were found near the surface; deeper down lay fragments of coarse unglazed British and also of Roman pottery, and close to, or within one of the cists, a rude oblong amethyst, about an inch long, perforated lengthwise. In another were small pieces of charcoal, and a fragment of British pottery; and in a third an unusually large tusk of a wild boar. Mr. Brown, conceiving the position of the bodies to prove the introduction of Christian sepulchral rites, supposes these cists to have belonged to the Christians of Romanized Britain, before the Saxon invasion. It seems more probable that they pertain to that far older era which preceded the singular Pagan rites accompanying the circumscribed cist. The cranial characteristics appear to confirm this idea, and it is only on such a supposition that we can conceive of the establishment of the graveyard upon the site, in entire ignorance of the primeval cemetery buried beneath the accumulated debris of later generations. Another skeleton, found near Maidstone, in a circumscribed cist of peculiar construction, and undoubtedly of Pagan origin, is thus described by the Rev. Beal Post:—"The state of the skull, from the sutures being much obliterated, shewed the individual to have been about seventy years of age; the form of the skull also shewed that he did not belong to the present race which possess the island, but to the Celtic division of the European family. It was very narrow in the front part, and low in the forehead, exhibiting but little development of the intellectual faculties, while the organs of self-preservation, and other inferior organs in the hinder parts of the skull, were strongly developed. The bones seem to be those of a person about five feet seven inches high, the thigh-bone being seventeen inches long, and the other bones in proportion. The teeth, apparently, had been every one in a sound state. None of those found were in a state of decay, even incipiently so."[218] In both of these interesting examples it is obvious that the term Celtic is loosely applied in contradistinction to Saxon or Teutonic, and in accordance with the preconceived idea that the Celtæ are the primeval colonists of Britain. The forms of these crania appear clearly to lead to a different conclusion. Such are some of the observations heretofore made on the physical characteristics of the primitive Briton. Scanty as they are, they possess considerable value to us in the attempt to recover the lost chapters of his history. Imperfect as the development of the intellectual faculties appear to have been, there is sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion, that the races of the tumuli, whether regarded as Allophylian or Celtic, were abundantly capable of civilisation, and possessed a cerebral capacity fully equal to that of nations which have carried the practical and decorative arts far in advance of a mere archaic period.

One characteristic feature observed in the skulls of various tumuli is the state of the teeth. It is rare to find among them any symptoms of irregularity or decay. Sir R. C. Hoare remarks of those of Wiltshire,—"The singular beauty of the teeth has often attracted our attention; we have seldom found one unsound or one missing, except in the cases of apparent old age. This peculiarity may be easily accounted for. The Britons led a pastoral life, feeding upon the milk of their flocks and the venison of their forests; and the sweets of the West Indies were to them totally unknown." In the tumular cemetery at North Berwick, the teeth of the skulls, though sound, were worn, in most cases completely flat, like those of a ruminating animal. Dr. Thurnam remarks the same to have been the case with the teeth examined by him in those of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Lamel Hill; and it is also observable in an under jaw found along with other remains of a human skull, an iron hatchet, and several large boars' tusks, in a deep excavation on the south bank of the Castlehill of Edinburgh. The jaw, with the accompanying relics, are in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. The same peculiarity is referred to, as observed in a remarkable discovery of human remains in the Kent's Hole Cave, near Torquay, made by the late Rev. J. MacEnery during his geological researches in that locality. As the account of this discovery, which is accompanied with details of great value to the archæologist, has only been recovered through the zeal of Mr. Edward Vivian, since the death of the author, and printed in a local periodical,[219] it is extracted here at considerable length. It was to Mr. MacEnery's researches that Buckland and others of the earlier modern geologists owed their most valuable data; and some of the rarest palæontological specimens in the British Museum originally belonged to his private collection. Kent's Hole is referred to by Professor Owen, in his History of British Fossil Mammals, as "perhaps the richest cave depository of bears hitherto found in England." The roof is clustered with pendant cones of stalactite, and the floor thickly paved with concretions of stalagmite, the accumulations of many centuries, which have sealed down the floor hermetically, and preserved the relics both of the geologist and the archæologist safe from disturbance, and protected from decay.

The peculiarity in the teeth of certain classes of ancient crania above referred to is of very general application, and has been observed as common even among British sailors. The cause is obvious, resulting from the similarity of food in both cases. The old Briton of the Anglo-Roman period, and the Saxon both of England and the Scottish Lothians, had lived to a great extent on barley bread, oaten cakes, parched peas, or the like fare, producing the same results on his teeth as the hard sea-biscuit does on those of the British sailor. Such, however, is not generally the case, and in no instance, indeed, to the same extent in the skulls found in the earlier British tumuli. In the Scottish examples described above the teeth are mostly very perfect, and their crowns not at all worn down. In that marked No. 5, one of those found at Cockenzie, the under jaw has been preserved, and in it the wisdom teeth are only partially developed, indicating the age of the individual. The perfectly formed teeth are not much more worn than those which had never pierced the gums.

The inferences to be drawn from such a comparison are of considerable value in the indications they afford of the domestic habits and social life of a race, the last survivor of which has mouldered underneath his green tumulus, perchance for centuries before the era of our earliest authentic chronicles. As a means of comparison this characteristic appearance of the teeth manifestly furnishes one means of discriminating between an early and a still earlier, if not primeval period, and though not in itself conclusive, it may be found of considerable value when taken in connexion with the other and still more obvious peculiarities of the crania of the earliest barrows. We perceive from it, at least, that a very decided change took place in the common food of the country, from the period when the native Briton of the primeval period pursued the chase with the flint lance and arrow, and the spear of deer's horn, to that comparatively recent period when the Saxon marauders began to effect settlements and build houses on the scenes where they had ravaged the villages of the older British natives. The first class, we may infer, attempted little cultivation of the soil. Improving on the precarious chances of a mere nomadic or hunter life, we have been led to suppose, from other evidence, that the early Briton introduced the rudiments of a pastoral life, while yet his dwelling was only the slight circular earth-pit, in-covered with overhanging boughs and skins. To the spoils of the chase he would then add the milk of his flock of goats or sheep, probably with no other addition than such wild esculents, mast, or fruits, as might be gathered without labour in the glades of the neighbouring forest. But the social state in the British Isles was a progressive one. Whether by the gradual improvement of the aboriginal race, or by the incursion of foreign tribes already familiar with the fruits of agricultural labour, the wild pastoral or hunter life of the first settlers was exchanged for one more suited to call forth the social virtues. The increase of the population, whether by the ingress of such new tribes, or by the numerical progression of the first settlers, would of itself put an end to the possibility of finding subsistence by means of the chase. Thus it might be from the inventive industry which privations force into activity that new wants were first discovered, new tastes were created, and satisfied by the annual harvests of golden grain. The ploughshare and the pruning-hook divided attention with the sword and the spear, which they could not supplant; and the ingenious agriculturist devised his oaken querne, his stone-rubber, or corn-crusher, and at length his simple yet effective hand-mill, which resisted, during many centuries of change and progress, all attempts to supersede it by more complicated machinery. Dr. Pettigrew, in communicating the results of a series of observations on the bones found in various English barrows, remarks,—"The state of the teeth in all of them indicated that the people had lived chiefly on grain and roots."[223] The dry, hard oaten cake of the Scottish peasant, which may have been in use almost from the first attempt at cultivation of the favourite national grain, would probably prove as effective as any of the presumed vegetable foods for producing such results. We need not, at any rate, evidence to satisfy us that the luxuries which have rendered the services of the dentist so indispensable to the modern Briton were altogether excluded from the regimen of his rude forefathers.

Sir Richard Colt Hoare commences the great work which has secured for him so distinguished a place among British archæologists, with the motto—"We speak from facts, not theory." While seeking to render the facts of Scottish Archæology fully available, it is my earnest desire to follow in the footsteps of a leader so proved. The inferences attempted to be deduced from such facts as have been accumulated here, with a view to discover some elementary principles for the guidance of Scottish archæologists, are such as appear naturally and logically to follow from them. Still they are stated apart from the premises, and those who have followed thus far ungrudgingly in exploring the primeval sepulchres of Scotland, will find no difficulty in pausing ere they commit themselves to the same guidance in seeking also some glimpses of the native hearth and pastoral inclosures, and of the evidences of that inventive skill which succeeded to such simple arts. We would fain reanimate the ashes in these long buried urns, and interrogate the rude British patriarch regarding a state of being which for centuries—perhaps for many ages—pertained on these very spots where now our churches, palaces, and our homeliest dwellings are reared, but which seems almost as inconceivable to us as that other state of being, to which we know the old Briton, with all the seed of Adam, has passed.

It may appear to some a service of little value, the unrolling of these "mute inglorious" records. Yet somewhat is surely gained when we reach the beginnings of things, and substitute for the old historic mist-land of myth and fable, a coherent and intelligible, though dry and somewhat meagre array of facts and legitimate deductions. It is no longer needful, however, to defend the object of our research. It is to some extent the same which the ethnologist is pursuing by a different route; though the palæontological investigations of the archæologist have yet to establish their true value in the estimation of men of science by the nature of their results. For this we wait in hope. I would only meanwhile repeat, that we cannot be justified in concluding any knowledge which once existed to be utterly lost beyond recall; and if the geologist has been able to recover so much from annals that seemed to have been folded up and laid aside ere this race was summoned into being to people a renovated world, surely we ought not to despair of being yet able to fill up our meagre outline with many details which shall satisfy the severest demands of inductive philosophy, and rest their claims to acceptance not on theory but on fact.